Posts for tag: oral hygiene

Brushing and flossing your teeth provides a lot of benefits, including a brighter smile and fresher breath. But the primary benefit—and ultimate goal—is removing dental plaque. This biofilm of bacteria and food remnants on tooth and gum surfaces is the number one cause for dental disease.

Brushing and flossing can effectively keep plaque under control. Unfortunately, plaque can be a stubborn foe, hiding in areas easily missed if you're not thorough enough.

So how do you know you're doing a good job brushing and flossing? One quick way is to use your tongue or dental floss to feel for any grittiness, a possible sign of remaining plaque. Ultimately, your dentist or hygienist can give you the best evaluation of your hygiene efforts during your three or six-month checkup.

But there's another way to find out more definitively how well you're removing plaque in between dental visits: a plaque disclosing agent. These over-the-counter products contain a dye solution that stains plaque so it stands out from clean tooth surfaces.

A disclosing agent, which can come in the form of tablets, swabs or a liquid, is easy to use. After brushing and flossing, you apply the agent according to the product's directions. The dye reacts with plaque to stain it a distinct color. You may also find products with two-tone dyes that stain older and newer plaque different colors to better gauge your overall effectiveness.

You then examine your teeth in the bathroom mirror, looking especially for patterns of missed plaque. For example, if you see dyed plaque running along the gum line, you'll know you need to concentrate your hygiene there.

After observing what you can do to improve your future efforts, you can then brush and floss your teeth to remove as much of the dyed plaque as you can. The staining from the dye is temporary and any remaining will fade over a few hours.

Using a disclosing agent regularly could help you improve your overall hygiene technique and reduce your risk of disease. Ask your dentist for recommendations on products.

Now that we’re into the New Year, it’s a good time to look over your list of resolutions. Did you remember to include dental health on your list? Here’s one simple resolution that can help keep your smile bright and healthy through the New Year and beyond: Floss every day!

Your oral hygiene routine at home is your first line of defense against tooth decay and gum disease. While brushing your teeth twice a day effectively removes much of the food debris and dental plaque from your teeth, brushing alone is not sufficient to remove all the plaque that forms on your teeth and around your gums. For optimal oral health, flossing once a day is also necessary.

Which teeth do you need to floss? Any dentist will tell you, “Only the ones you want to keep!” And yet according to a national survey of over 9,000 U.S. adults age 30 and older, nearly 70% don’t floss every day, and nearly one third admit that they don’t floss their teeth at all. Unfortunately, if you don’t floss, you’ll miss cleaning about a third of your tooth surfaces. When plaque is not removed, this sticky film of bacteria releases acids that cause cavities and gum disease. With dental floss, however, you can clean between the teeth and around the gums where a toothbrush can’t reach.

Flossing is an essential component of good oral hygiene. Still, daily flossing seems to be a harder habit to get into than brushing. Some people tense up their cheek muscles while flossing, making it harder to comfortably reach the back teeth, so remember to relax as you floss. If unwaxed floss doesn’t glide easily between teeth, try waxed floss. If you have trouble using traditional dental floss, you can try threader floss, which has a rigid tip, interdental brushes, floss picks, or a water flosser, which cleans by way of pressurized water.

It’s not too late to add one more resolution to your list, and flossing is a habit that will go a long way toward keeping you in the best oral health. And along with good dental hygiene at home, regular professional dental cleanings and checkups are key to a healthy smile. If you would like more information about maintaining excellent dental health, please contact us or schedule a consultation. To learn more, read the Dear Doctor magazine articles “Daily Oral Hygiene” and “Flossing—A New Technique.”

Summer is the time for many children to experience the fun and freedom of sleepaway camp. Along with greater independence, camp brings increased responsibility for kids to take care of themselves, including taking care of their oral health.

Two keys to dental health are a balanced diet and good oral hygiene, but camp life may tempt kids to overdo the kinds of food they don’t often indulge in at home. For most campers, enjoying s’mores around the fire is a given, but these marshmallowy treats pack a punch in the sugar department. In fact, a single s’more has half the daily limit of sugar recommended by the World Health Organization—and if the sweet treat’s name is any indication, no one stops at just one! Because sticky marshmallows are a central ingredient, they are worse for the teeth than many other sweets; the goo adheres to the surface of the teeth and gets stuck between teeth and braces, increasing the potential for tooth decay. Add in plenty of opportunities to consume sugary drinks and other treats throughout the week, and sleepaway camp can be a less-than-ideal environment to maintain good oral health, especially since brushing and flossing may not be a high priority with so much else going on.

You can help your camper feel more invested in their oral hygiene routine by involving them in as many preparations as possible, such as making a list of items to pack and shopping together for dental supplies. These can include a travel toothbrush with a case and a travel-sized tube of fluoride toothpaste—or a package of pre-pasted disposable toothbrushes. And don’t forget dental floss! You may also wish to include gum sweetened with xylitol, a natural sweetener that helps fight cavities. This could come in handy for those times your child gets too busy to brush.

Consider scheduling a teeth cleaning for the downtime after your child gets home from camp and before the start of the new school year, just in case your child wasn’t the most diligent about oral hygiene while away—and to ensure that they begin the new school year in the best oral health.

Losing teeth to tooth decay or periodontal (gum) disease is never easy. But with implant-supported bridgework, you can regain lost function and appearance with a restoration that could last for many years.

Don’t think, though, that dental disease woes are a thing of the past with your new implants. Although your restoration itself can’t be infected, the supporting gums and underlying bone can, often through bacterial plaque accumulating around the implants. The bone that supports the implants could deteriorate, dramatically increasing your chances of losing your restoration.

It’s essential, then, that you keep the area between the bridge and gums clean of plaque through daily hygiene. This definitely includes flossing around the implants.

Flossing with an implant-supported bridge will be different than with natural teeth: instead of flossing between teeth you’ll need to thread the floss between the bridge and gums. Although this is a bit more difficult, it can be done with the help of a floss threader, a device with a loop on one end and a long, thin plastic point on the other—similar to a sewing needle.

To use it, thread about 18” of floss through the loop and then pass the threader’s thin end first through the space between the bridge and gums toward the tongue until the floss threader pulls through. You can then take hold of one end of the floss and then pull the threader completely out from beneath the bridge. Then, you wrap the ends around your fingers as you would normally and thoroughly floss the implant surfaces you’re accessing. You then release one end of the floss, pull out the remainder, rethread it in the threader and repeat the process in the next space between implants.

You also have other hygiene tool options: prefabricated floss with stiffened ends that thread through the bridge-gum space that you can use very easily; or you can purchase an interproximal brush that resembles a pipe cleaner with thin plastic bristles to access the space and brush around the implants.

Some patients also find an oral irrigator, a handheld device that sprays a pressurized stream of water to loosen and flush away plaque, to be an effective way of keeping this important area clean. But that said, oral irrigators generally aren’t as effective removing dental plaque as are floss or interproximal brushes.

Whatever flossing method you choose, the important thing is to choose one and practice it every day. By keeping bacterial plaque from building up around your implants, you’ll help ensure you won’t lose your restoration to disease, so it can continue to serve you for many years to come.

A woman as gorgeous and funny as Sofia Vergara surely planned to be a model and actress from the get-go, right? Wrong! Sofia’s first career choice actually was to be… a dentist! That’s right, the sexy star of TV’s Modern Family actually was only two semesters shy of finishing a dental degree in her native Columbia when she traded dental school for the small screen. Still, dental health remains a top priority for the actress and her son, Manolo.

“I’m obsessed,” she recently told People magazine. “My son thinks I’m crazy because I make him do a cleaning every three months. I try to bribe the dentist to make him to do it sooner!”

That’s what we call a healthy obsession (teeth-cleaning, not bribery). And while coming in for a professional cleaning every three months may not be necessary for everyone, some people — especially those who are particularly susceptible to gum disease — may benefit from professional cleanings on a three-month schedule. In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to having professional teeth cleanings — but everyone needs this beneficial procedure on a regular basis.

Even if you are meticulous about your daily oral hygiene routine at home, there are plenty of reasons for regular checkups. They include:

Dental exam. Oral health problems such as tooth decay and gum disease are much easier — and less expensive — to treat in the earliest stages. You may not have symptoms of either disease early on, but we can spot the warning signs and take appropriate preventive or restorative measures.

Oral cancer screening. Oral cancer is not just a concern of the middle aged and elderly — young adults can be affected as well (even those who do not smoke). The survival rate for this deadly disease goes up tremendously if it is detected quickly, and an oral cancer screening is part of every routine dental visit.

Professional teeth cleaning. Calcified (hardened) dental plaque (tartar or calculus) can build up near the gum line over time — even if you brush and floss every day. These deposits can irritate your gums and create favorable conditions for tooth decay. You can’t remove tartar by flossing or brushing, but we can clear it away — and leave you with a bright, fresh-feeling smile!